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Barriers and opportunities for wildfire risk reduction treatments in the Cariboo region of British Columbia

University of British Columbia

The state of wildfire risk and occurrence in Canada poses challenges for forests in British Columbia. These challenges are especially exigent for dry-belt forests in the province. In the Interior, Douglas-fir stands have long been neglected, with licensees across the region focused on salvage logging of lodgepole pine stands affected by mountain pine beetle. With the end of salvage logging in sight, Interior Douglas-fir stands will become an increasingly important source of timber supply in the area. But these stands have stagnated. They are over-dense and at risk for catastrophic losses from wildfire or another insect or disease outbreak. This exploratory research focuses on identifying policies or economic factors that are the most constraining on forest managers in the region. To do so, qualitative case study research methods involving semi-structured interviews are used. These interviews were administered to forest professionals in decision-making positions for various actors in the region. Understanding the views of these decision-makers is one of the fundamental pieces of making sense of the on-the-ground effects of forest or environmental policies or regulations. Then, using a framework of barriers to climate change adaptation developed by Ekstrom, Moser, and Torn (2011), potential barriers to solutions are discovered. Finally, the potential adaptation of a US tool called “stewardship contracting” to address issues, constraints, or barriers is analyzed.

Text

2020-06-10

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/74678

Forestry

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/